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World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden
- rb808 9y agoWow I always assumed plugin batteries would be the only way to run electric cars, this is great. Also searching I saw these trucks using overhead electric lines, also in Sweden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27100u7IcII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27100u7IcII
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y agoIt seems they're trying a few approaches out to see what works best.
- azernik 9y agoA lot of electric busses in San Francisco also use pantographs, though usually without a substantial battery, meaning they can't disconnect and reconnect like these cars could.
- Animats 9y agoMany of the electric buses in SF do have a backup battery. Not much range, but enough to get it back to the wire if one gets out of position. The older buses needed a tow truck if they became disconnected from power.
- kwhitefoot 9y agoIt would be cheaper and more easily scalable to fit more charging points in parking spaces at shopping centres, motorway service stations and so on. Why do we keep on inventing new complicated ways of doing things instead of standardising and exploiting the things that we already know work?
- rb808 9y agoElectrified rails on trains have been around much longer than parking stations. Plus batteries are the biggest problem (and most expensive) part of ecars, so this is a good idea to try out.
- jacquesm 9y agoBut those rails are on otherwise off-limit tracks and 'third rail' solutions are notoriously dangerous. This system has the two rails closely spaced side-by-side so it may be a bit safer but in the presence of moisture it could be dangerous too. It's basically a scaled up version of a slot car track.
- rsynnott 9y ago> This system has the two rails closely spaced side-by-side so it may be a bit safer but in the presence of moisture it could be dangerous too. Did you read the article? This is addressed.
- jacquesm 9y agoYes, I did read the article, otherwise I would not have been able to write what I did, note that the title says nothing about how the electrodes from the car connect to the road. So you could have known that I had read the article. Yes, the article addresses it, no, the article does not address it in a way that gives me a good feeling about the safety of this system in the presence of moisture. It really doesn't take a lot of power to kill a person and even though you can ground-fault-protect the crap out of a setup like this the fact is that such measures can fail and if you start deploying it en-masse in a hostile environment they will fail in large enough numbers that it will not longer be safe. Note how industrial power is hardly ever ground fault protected because the leakage currents in the standard setup are too high already to reliably detect a ground fault. In other words: if the system delivers enough power to electrical cars to meaningfully affect their state of charge there is inherent danger.
- ubittibu 9y agoAnd wet become fantastic skating slopes for motorcycles.
- yodon 9y agoI can’t help but be amused at the way people fear cell phone towers but love wireless charging devices
- jacquesm 9y agoThe difference is that the frequencies required for wireless charging are typically much lower if the coupling is magnetic. The 'wireless' form in the article is more akin to what a trolleybus would use and likely would not survive for long in the presence of either a large amount of traffic (more demand than the rail could handle, imagine a traffic jam) or arcing as well as danger to the public (think subway third rail). I do not think this concept will survive in the long term.
- rsynnott 9y agoThis one isn't wireless; there's an arm descending from the vehicle.
- bluGill 9y agoI'm sure people will fear this too. Driving by the same people who probably will make a ton of money speaking about how bad it is for you. Of course in both cases that science says there is no harm is best shouted down.
- JPLeRouzic 9y agoI would comment only about the wireless charging case: In medicine there is a wireless device to treat an aggressive form of brain cancer: TTFields. It is approved by the FDA [0] It works by disrupting microtubules in the cell, a kind of micro-skeleton that gives its shape to the cell. The TTFields electrical fields have a low frequency, very similar to the Qi wireless charging standard. [0] https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf10/p100034a.pdf https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf10/p100034a.pdf
- gruez 9y ago>I can’t help but be amused at the way people fear cell phone towers but love wireless charging devices how do you know they're not a disjoint set?
- jacquesm 9y agoSlotcar track that has been scaled up, so: arcing, dangerous, will wear, finicky as hell and impossible to change lanes without losing contact. Probably not the best idea but props for trying.
- rb808 9y agoI'd like to see how it works with a salted wet road too - do they turn it off?
- gregschlom 9y agoThey address that concern in the article. They said the voltage on the surface of the track is only 1 volt when the road is flooded with salty water.
- ConceitedCode 9y agoApparently they tested just that - Säll said: “There is no electricity on the surface. There are two tracks, just like an outlet in the wall. Five or six centimetres down is where the electricity is. But if you flood the road with salt water then we have found that the electricity level at the surface is just one volt. You could walk on it barefoot.” They also mentioned they turn off each segment if there is not a car on it. Each segment is 50 meters.
- sgt 9y agoBut will slugs be able to safely cross the road?
- JustSomeNobody 9y agoNo. But in a few generations they'll learn not to. In a few more they'll be expert jumpers.
- verandaguy_alt 9y agoThat's actually reassuring, I'm glad they looked into this. My follow-up concern is, what if, under these salty and wet conditions, something causes a short circuit between the powered rails? e.g., either a defective vehicle-side contact where the anode and cathode allow for the water and salt to close a much smaller gap, or if someone deliberately sticks a piece of metal on there.
- thedirt0115 9y agoWhy is this considered "the world's first electrified road for charging vehicles"? Compared to https://www.wired.com/2013/08/induction-charged-buses/ https://www.wired.com/2013/08/induction-charged-buses/ for example. Does induction based charging not count as electrified? Is it that the Korean one was for their buses only, not general passenger cars?
- rightbyte 9y ago"The world’s first electrified road that recharges the batteries of cars and trucks driving on it". Well, that's a buss. Jokes aside, the concept is quite old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus#History Not easy to disengage though.
- TheForumTroll 9y agoThe difference is that the one you link has a few induction plates along the route while the other has rails from one end to the other. It's like saying "why do we need electric cars? We already have hybrids!" There are also buses around here that charge at special points along the route. That doesn't make the roads electrified though. Great job from Sweden, no matter if it is world first or not.
- thedirt0115 9y agoThat's fair, thanks for the explanation. I legit didn't know the specifics of the Korean technology, just that I had heard the bus can get charge from the road while driving on it.
- bitwize 9y ago"The Deliverator's car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator's car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished sphincters. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, shit happens. You want to talk contact patches? Your car's tires have tiny contact patches, talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. The Deliverator's car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady's thighs. The Deliverator is in touch with the road, starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta."
- hyuibg 9y agoThis isn’t all that new - in fact London’s tram system was using it c100 years ago: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UIyXE_Fv3vA/TkLYU8vbHRI/AAAAAAAALb8/WKjHa5zGNcs/s640/London+trams+c.1950s+%25288%2529.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UIyXE_Fv3vA/TkLYU8vbHRI/AAAAAAAALb...
- TheForumTroll 9y agoTry taking that off the rails and go shopping and see how it works. No comparable at all.
- notatoad 9y agoThis doesn't make much sense as an urban project, where chargers are close by, lane-switching is frequent, people are likely to be on the road, and which the article invites you to think about by comparing the cost to an urban tram. but it makes ton of sense for long-distance highway journeys, which is a problem that really needs solving before electric vehicles can be practical.
- justherefortart 9y agoThis is what the article states. They think the 20K km of highways would be more than enough and based on distance from smaller populated areas as little as 5K km.
- Nition 9y agoAlthough if you had this everywhere, you could probably do away with most of the batteries on electric cars, making them a lot cheaper and lighter.
- wil421 9y agoIt would never be everywhere at not in somewhere as vast as Europe or US. To jump on OPs bandwagon. It would make sense to have this on highways as opposed to surface streets. Distance is one of the limiting factors for a lot of people buying electric. In the US interstates are at least maintained by the Feds and are pretty standard in look and feel. It would probably be easier to implement nationwide.
- 0xffff2 9y ago>In the US interstates are at least maintained by the Feds and are pretty standard in look and feel. I don't believe that's true. At least in California, CalTrans does all of the maintenance on state and federal highways alike. AFAIK CalTrans does get paid by the Federal government for interstate maintenance, but that's the extent of the USDOT's involvement in interstate maintenance.
- 9y ago
- rhodrid 9y agoWhen I saw the title I thought it was going to be the first deployment of the Qualcomm system featured on fullycharged[1] back in November. What they've actually done looks... kinda flakey. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t0E4AcVu6o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t0E4AcVu6o
- markgavalda 9y agoYeah I hoped for something like that too :(
- acd 9y agoI hope Sweden and Germany can make a common DIN Deutche industri normen standard for charging electric vehicles on roads. There would be an added benefit if we could build rail tracks among the electric guidance line. Rail tracks to lower the rolling resistance, metal on metal vs rubber on asphalt. We would then have a hybrid car rail track which should make it easy for autonomous driving. The aim would to bring down the total co2 emissions of transportation. Building both in ground and above ground electrification of cars would be the best system as then cars can charge during good weather conditions and trucks can always charge even during winter time. A system with electric guidance in the ground is a bit vulnerable to snow during winter times. Here is another more rail like track which can be used by trucks but not by cars. https://www.scania.com/group/en/worlds-first-electric-road-opens-in-sweden/ https://www.scania.com/group/en/worlds-first-electric-road-o... Rolling resistance coefficient c of rail c=0.001, dirty tram rails c=0.005, car c=0.02. Ie rails resistance is at least 25 times lower than rubber on asphalt 0.005/0.02. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_resistance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_resistance https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/rolling-friction-resistance-d_1303.html https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/rolling-friction-resistan...
- stefan_ 9y agoLet's just only have train tracks? We can still have electric trucks for the last mile, but then they won't need electrified roads. Long-distance goods transport with trucks is such a ridiculous concept, it's really time we just face it: it only ever made sense because the state funds the roads and road repair from general taxation, we have ridiculous subsidies for the fossil fuels that make it run and trains had the misfortune to be invented such a long time ago that the government has suffocated the industry. Rolling resistance is somewhat of a rounding error, by the way. The big killer is aerodynamics: the power needed to push air out of the way increases quadratically with speed. But there is a cheat code: if you make the vehicle longer or add something to the back, it can ride in the slipstream. Only you can't make trucks very long at all because they need to work on public roads. Trains on the other hand can be made ridiculously long, saving massively on energy - multiple miles of wagons if you so wish.
- 9y ago
- joering2 9y agoSun can charge battery thru solar panels we all know that. Can Musk use his sattelites network to shoot down a precisely guided laser to charge your Tesla i.e. thru roof/hood made off of solar panels?
- wolfpwner 9y agoNext step: wireless induction charging in parking spaces
- hvidgaard 9y agoUnless a revolution comes along in the field, it's too inefficient. Best condition inductive chargers can yield 90% efficiency, and that is not too bad. But that require perfect alignment, and no distance between the coils. Neither is realistic in a "park and charge without doing anything" scenario.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- vesinisa 9y agoI wonder what is the charging power with this? Can the car sustain its battery infinitely if you drive over electrified highways only?
- rcthompson 9y agoYes, but it's still not enough to power your smartphone while it's doing turn-by-turn navigation.
- blackrock 9y agoCool, now I can play F-Zero in real life.
- dest 9y agoWhat is the voltage of the track? If filled with salt water, 1 volt at the surface, but beneath?
- hyuuu 9y agois this the actual real world implementation of SOLAR FREAKIN ROADWAYS?
- timonoko 9y agoWhy cant they just supply kinetic energy? Cars have electric generators themselves. It would be cheaper and safer, just basic cable-car technology. The end-product is kinetic energy, anyway, so basically lossless. We could have cable-slots at every uphill, and if there is too much traffic, all energy goes just to moving cars. But they have now acquired kinetic energy and can harness it at next downhill section with breaking generators.
- dx034 9y agoI guess this would be very costly and have too many risks of damaged cars and/or injuries by a broken cable.
- timonoko 9y agoSanFrancisco-style cable-car has a cable in a slot. It is 200 year old technology, safe to pedestrians and horses. It could be made even safer with magnetic coupling. The cable has strong permanent magnets and you can attach to these or use alternating magnetic field to generate energy.
- dx034 9y agoYes but they were all built for that system specifically. And they are significantly slower than cars on a motorway. I don't think cars going 70mph and frequently linking in & out of the cable would be safe.
- hndamien 9y agoIs fast charging and short periods of stopping really that much of an issue?
- pankajdoharey 9y agoWhat happens when the tracks are flooded by rain water. Would it not shortcircuit the tracks? How does one get rid of rain water filled in the tracks to make them operational again?
- newman8r 9y agoSounds like it's a low voltage system with recessed terminals. The article claims that if the road is flooded with saltwater, it's only ~1 volt at the surface.
- John_KZ 9y agoThis is probably the worst idea I've seen materialize in a long time.
- animal531 9y agoI am somehow reminded of when I was a kid playing with my Scalextric and I'd get some no-name brand of car that would be used on a different circuit and voltage, then suddenly having it run 5x as fast as normal on the Sca. track.
- stevespang 9y agoGeez, I can see the politicians slap happy high five already - - what a great new way to meter and tax citizens. Get them accustomed to getting their power from the Gov't road, and away from decentralized do-it-yourself charging at home with solar panels which is not metered. Just watch how the prices will increase over time, after all, somebody has to pay for that $3/4 million per kilometer track in the road . . . and then of course there is the reliability question, which in my city we loose central power every month.